


Katharsis

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-05-16
Updated: 2003-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-20 12:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11335557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: An end, and also a beginning.





	Katharsis

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

Katharsis

### Katharsis

#### by Marcia Elena

  


Title: Katharsis 

Author: Marcia Elena 

Email: 

Keywords: M/K, Krycek's POV 

Spoilers: None, really. 

Rating: R 

Summary: An end, and also a beginning. Post-Colonization. Written July/August 2002 

Disclaimer: Not mine. Not really Theirs, either, but each other's. 

Author's notes: I was trying to paint a picture with this piece. Hope I succeeded. Thank you to Sin, for suggesting the title again. _g_ And thanks to her and Marjie, for being my guinea pigs. 

For you, Logan. Because you helped me get them to the right place. 

* * *

Katharsis   
by Marcia Elena 

Standing silent before us, the gates of Hell lie crooked and ajar. The Mothership, the alien's main base of operations, finally brought down by the Human Resistance. 

Years of fighting are over. We've won. The gates of Hell are silent, now: no more will they swallow anyone to suffer unspeakable horrors, only to spit them back out again, chewed and half-digested, their bodies used for unnatural things, their souls gone, lost, forgotten. 

The air should've been sweet at this time of year, the promise of Spring floating in the air. But all we can smell is death; all around us, blackened bodies lay strewn, some human, some alien, some unrecognizable. 

Nothing stirs here. Mulder and I are the only things left alive for miles. I look at him, beautiful and tall and tired beside me, his gaze locked on the ruined ship, his face carved by pain. Victory Day, yet he doesn't smile; he never does anymore. For a moment I am sure he means to go into that blackness, to find the end that, for so long, we've both believed would be ours -- to die in Hell, since there was no more Heaven to live in. But after a while he turns his back on it, and his eyes come to rest on mine. 

His eyes. There's a question in them, lurking behind the gleam of tears that were never born, of sanity that was never lost. Against all odds -- those are the words that can best describe us both. From grudging partners to enemies to allies. Never lovers or even friends -- there was never any time for it, every second of our days turned toward desperate survival -- and yet, somehow, closer than that. We haven't needed words in years, him and me; as leaders of the Resistance, we've learned to communicate silently, with no more than a glance or a gesture. 

All is silence now, here at the gates of Hell. The recent rains have turned the ground into a soggy mass of red mud; rivers of blood, running thick and heavy through this land. But we've won. And Mulder looks at me, the question still in his eyes, waiting, waiting. 

And I turn into stone. Because for the first time in -- forever -- I don't understand. 

A shudder runs through the air; distant thunder, stirring of wind, the world holding its breath. Mulder steps closer to me, the question a burning thing now, his arms hot as coals as they wrap around my waist, his lips a brand against my own. And he kisses me, holding me to him as I tremble, pouring his question into my mouth, down my throat, kissing, kissing, finding my heart, trembling, his whole body asking, asking, asking. 

Touching my soul. Turning me into water, into fire. 

Pulling away. 

Looking at me, beautiful and silent by the gates of Hell. 

We don't need words. And I understand the question now. But the world is still holding its breath, the clouds above us gravid with rain. With tears, to wash away the blood. 

"Yes," I speak aloud. Shattering the silence. 

The skies open, its deluge battering the ship into final submission. 

And Mulder smiles. Pain is still etched on his face, but his eyes are open now, and his arms are open -- everything is open, the sky, and Mulder, and me, and the future. And I fall into him, affirmation still on my lips as we kiss again and again and again, speaking without words as behind us the gates of Hell crumble and are no more. 

No more. Not Hell, not silence. And Heaven has been lost for too long to ever be found again. A paradise impossible to regain, since it was never ours. 

But we have the Earth again. And we have each other, coming together at the last, touched and touching and alive. 

And that is enough. 

* * *

End

* * *

  
 

If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Marcia Elena


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